Tag: King County Democrats

1. At Sound Transit’s board meeting Thursday, agency CEO Peter Rogoff said the 40-minute waits many commuters experiencing when escalators at the University of Washington light rail station stopped working last Friday were “unacceptable by any measure.” Sound Transit wouldn’t let commuters use the stalled escalators as stairs—a common practice in other transit systems across the country—because they said the variable stair height on the escalators could result in people tripping. “This resulted in painfully long lines for our customers and rightly resulted in numerous customer complaints,” Rogoff summarized, adding that Sound Transit staff would come back to the board’s operations and administration committee with a set of “remedies” on April 5.

At the same meeting, board members also approved a set of performance objectives for Rogoff, including the development of a “Leadership Development Plan” for Rogoff in collaboration with a panel consisting of board members Nancy Backus, Paul Roberts, and Ron Lucas—the mayor of Auburn, mayor pro tem of Everett, and mayor of Steilacoom, respectively. The board mandated the plan at its last meeting, after (mildly) chiding Rogoff for his alleged behavior toward agency employees, which included looking women up and down and giving them “elevator eyes,” using racially insensitive language, shoving chairs, and yelling and swearing at employees. At that meeting, the board declined to give Rogoff a $30,000 bonus but did grant him a five-percent “cost-of-living” raise, bringing his salary to more than $328,000.

Several board members, including Seattle city council member Rob Johnson, expressed concern about a potential lack of transparency around the development of the plan, but no one raised any objections over the adequacy of the guidelines themselves, which include vague directives such as “Continue to enhance leadership skills, including the areas of active listening, self-awareness, and relationship building” and “develop specific action plans, performance expectation targets, and measurements to improve leadership abilities in these areas.” Last month, Johnson and Mayor Jenny Durkan were the only votes against the plan for Rogoff’s rehabilitation, which they both deemed inadequate given the seriousness of the allegations against him.

2. A petition to begin the process of removing Bailey Stober as chair of the King County Democrats has enough signatures to move the process to the next step: Holding a meeting of all the precinct committee officers (PCOs) in the county to vote on whether to remove Stober, who is under investigation for allegations of sexual harassment and financial misconduct. However, dozens of PCOs who have been appointed but not yet approved by Stober may be unable to vote, including nearly a dozen “pending” PCOs who have signed an open letter calling on Stober to resign.

On Monday, the group’s executive board agreed to hold a meeting to discuss the financial misconduct allegations against Stober; the petition will be presented at that meeting. On Tuesday, Stober said he planned to make an “announcement pertinent to our organization” during his report at the beginning of the meeting. Some in the group have speculated that he may attempt to present “evidence” in a separate harassment case against him that would cast his alleged victim—a former employee whom Stober fired—and her supporters in an unflattering light, and then resign.

One hundred twenty-two appointed PCOs remain in “pending” status waiting for Stober to sign off on their appointments, which is one of the duties of the King County party chair. Some have been waiting for more than a year for Stober’s approval.

3. Meanwhile, Stober has lost his legal representation in a separate case stemming from alleged campaign-finance violations in his 2015 run for Kent City Council. The firm that was representing him, Schwerin Campbell Barnard Iglitzen & Lavitt, filed a petition formally removing themselves from the case on March 8. The state Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has been attempting to get documents from Stober for nearly a year in a case related to two citizen actions filed by conservative activist Glen Morgan; the first accuses Stober of using campaign funds for personal use and other campaign-finance violations, and the second alleges that Stober campaigned for other candidates on public time (in his role as King County Dems chair) while on the clock as spokesman for King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson. Last June, the AGO issued a press release announcing it was seeking an order forcing Stober to hand over the documents; although that request was granted, subsequent court records reveal that the AGO was (at least initially) unable to serve Stober at his home (where the lights were on and a car was in the driveway but no one answered) or his office (where the process server was told Stober was on vacation.)

Dmitri Iglitzen, a partner at the firm, declined to comment on why his firm decided to stop representing Stober, citing attorney-client privilege, but did say that the firm has “at no time billed King County Democrats (or any other entity) for legal services related to our representation of Mr. Stober” and “at no time has provided legal services to Mr. Stober on a pro bono basis.” In other words, Stober was (or was supposed to be) paying them for their services. Iglitzen declined to say whether nonpayment was an issue in his firm’s decision to cut ties with Stober.

Stober, who ran for the Kent Council three times, has already been fined $4,000 for campaign disclosure violations related to his 2011 and 2013 campaigns for the position.

4. On Wednesday, the city council’s Planning, Land Use and Zoning committee finally approved legislation that will lift parking mandates, require more bike parking at new buildings, and require developers of large buildings to “unbundle” the cost of parking and rent by charging separately for each, on Wednesday, although one controversial provision will be back on the docket at Monday’s full council meeting.

Council member Lisa Herbold raised objections to several changes made by the legislation, including the unbundling provision (she worried that renters would choose not to rent parking and just park on the street); a new definition of “frequent transit service” that allows apartments without parking within a quarter-mile of bus routes that run, on average, every 15 minutes; and a provision removing parking mandates for affordable housing and one lowering the mandate for senior housing.

Most of Herbold’s amendments were unsuccessful, although she did manage to pass one that will impose a special parking mandate on new buildings near the Fauntleroy ferry dock. (Council member Mike O’Brien voted against that proposal, arguing that that there were ways to prevent ferry riders from parking in the neighborhood that did not involve requiring developers to build one parking space for every unit so close to a frequent bus line, the RapidRide C). When the full council takes up the legislation Monday, Herbold said she plans to reintroduce just one amendment: A proposal that would allow the city to impose “mitigation” requirements under the State Environmental Policy Act on new developments in neighborhoods where more than 85 percent of parking spaces are routinely occupied. Those measures could include site-specific parking mandates or provisions barring renters at a new development from obtaining residential parking zone permits to park on the street (currently, RPZ permits are available to all city residents.)

Both Johnson and O’Brien objected that the purpose of environmental mitigation under SEPA is to mitigate against the negative environmental impacts of projects, not build new parking lots for cars. O’Brien pointed to the well-documented phenomenon of induced demand—the principle that adding more parking spaces or highway lanes simply leads people to drive more. Herbold countered that driving around searching for parking has an environmental impact, an argument that equates the minuscule climate impact of circling the block for a minute to that of purchasing and driving a car because your neighborhood has plenty of free parking. “We should be reverse engineering” our existing urban landscape, Johnson argued, “and requiring more green space instead of more asphalt.”

The council will take up the parking reform legislation, and Herbold’s amendment, on Monday at 2pm.

If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site or making a one-time contribution! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as reporting-related and office expenses. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

UPDATE: King County Democrats chair Bailey Stober just sent out an email saying that after talking “with many of you, my family and my friends,” he would make “an announcement pertinent to our organization” at a March 27 meeting of the group’s executive board. Last night, the organization agreed to hold a meeting on that date to consider the financial misconduct allegations against Stober. I have a message out to Stober asking him if he plans to resign his position, as more than a half-dozen legislative district Democratic groups, more than 200 local Democrats, and a majority of his executive board have asked him to do.

Last night, the King County Democrats’ executive board voted for a resolution calling on the group’s chair, Bailey Stober, to resign. The vote was a turning point in the debate over whether Stober should remain at the helm of the organization after allegations that he bullied and sexually harassed his lone employee, former executive director Natalia Koss Vallejo, before firing her, along with separate claims of financial misconduct stemming from thousands of dollars in over-budget and apparently unauthorized expenditures. (More on those financial allegations, including a report from treasurer Nancy Podscwhit outlining the excess spending and unauthorized spending in detail, here and here.)

Heading into last night’s meeting, Stober’s detractors worried that he planned to introduce “evidence” against Koss Vallejo, his alleged victim, that could embarrass other Democrats and change the subject from the substantive allegations against Stober. (The evidence apparently included screen shots in which Koss Vallejo engaged in or played along with fat-shaming remarks about female Party members). They also expressed concern that Stober would try to confine any discussion of allegations against him to a closed executive session, as he did at the group’s meeting last month, when the King County Democrats also voted to expand the investigation into Stober’s behavior to include an investigation to find out who was “leaking” information about the investigation to the press.

Stober didn’t do that. Instead, he kept the meeting open, which eliminated the need to debate several proposals to prohibit or restrict the use of executive session. Before the meeting, Stober told me he was eliminating executive session in the interest of “transparency,” but it’s also true that an open meeting, livestreamed via the KC PCOMG Facebook page, would give him the chance to read a statement and present the potentially embarrassing evidence in front of the widest possible audience.

In the end, though, Stober was not allowed to make a statement or present evidence; the temporary chairman, Pierce County Democrats chair Tim Farrell, ruled his requests to do so out of order. Still—and despite stepping aside as chairman for the meeting—Stober managed to dominate the meeting, proposing procedural motion after procedural motion in an effort, some of his detractors claimed, to run out the clock. (Unlike last month’s meeting, which ran well past 11pm, last night’s meeting had to end promptly at 9:45—thanks to a motion from Stober, which did pass, establishing a hard stop at that time). Most of those motions failed, but so did an effort to move the most controversial item on the agenda, the resolution calling on Stober to resign, higher in the agenda.

Stober insisted throughout the meeting that he has had no chance to look at the allegations against him, which strains credulity. (Both an initial report taking each allegation in turn and the detailed financial report have been widely circulated, and there has been extensive media coverage, here and in other outlets, about the details of the allegations). “I would have no problem resigning … if there were any sort of a due process or an investigation,” Stober said. “To date, I have not been given a copy of the report by the vice chairs even outlining the accusations against me.” (The three vice chairs of the group, two of whom have since resigned, produced a report last month that concluded most of the financial and workplace misconduct allegations against Stober were founded.)

Stober also he attempted to expand the group investigating claims of workplace misconduct to include not just an employment law and labor expert, but two people appointed by the board itself—the same board that was unable to find volunteers to serve on a proposed five-member investigating panel, which would have included two members chosen by Stober himself.

In the end, the board voted to accept Podschwit’s report as the final report on the financial allegations, appointed labor negotiator Afton Larson to review the workplace misconduct allegations, and called on Stober to resign. The next steps will be another board meeting on March 27 to consider the financial misconduct allegations and a potential “trial” in two weeks. Since the group has never conducted a trial, the rules for doing so are unclear; however, the board rejected Stober’s attempt to appoint two apparent allies—King County Committeeman Jon Culver, who participated in some of the offensive text exchanges that are at the center of the harassment allegation, and King County Committeewoman Jami Smith, who spoke up for Stober last night—to come up with the rules for such a trial.

Finally, if Stober is still chair and if enough members sign a petition to call a meeting, the precinct committee officers will meet during or before the King County Democrats’ convention, on April 22, and vote on whether to remove Stober from office. (Stober made an effort to remain chair over that meeting, but was voted down). An affirmative vote—which requires the presence of 20 percent of all PCOs in the county and two-thirds support from those present and voting—would be final.

I have contacted Stober seeking comment on last night’s vote and asking to see the evidence he was unable to present last night, and will update this post if I hear from him.

If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site or making a one-time contribution! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as reporting-related and office expenses. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

1. Embattled King County Democrats chairman Bailey Stober, who has been accused of sexually harassing an employee he later fired and misappropriating Party funds, was in Eastern Washington this week, hanging out at the office of the Whitman County Democrats and reportedly campaigning for Democratic state House candidate Matthew Sutherland, while three more local Democratic organizations—the 32nd, 34th, and 46th District Democrats—were adopting resolutions that, to varying degrees, call for his removal as chair.

The 34th District Democrats’ resolution turned out to be the most contentious, thanks in part to 34th District chairman David Ginsberg—a Stober ally who told the Seattle Times he did not believe Stober had harassed the employee, Natalia Koss Vallejo, because Koss Vallejo had socialized with Stober and seemed “chummy” with him before he fired her. (Stober told me he could not harass a female employee because he is gay.) The day before the meeting, Ginsberg sent a letter to the district’s email list asserting that “any resolution condemning the alleged behavior of Chair Stober cannot be considered tomorrow night.” This led to a watered-down resolution calling on Precinct Committee Officers from the 34th to petition the King County Democrats for a special meeting to vote on Stober’s removal.

Ultimately, that resolution passed, but not before several speakers spoke strongly against it. One, 34th District state committeeman Chris Porter, likened Stober to Emmett Till, the 14-year-old boy who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after a white woman falsely accused him of whistling at her (along with several other civil-rights martyrs). “None of us know the facts,” he added. Porter was followed by another speaker who said Stober was falling victim to “the ‘big black man’ scenario … it’s intimidation.”

Most of the speakers defending Stober were men. One said he had worked with Stober “every day for a couple of hours a day” and “I never saw in all my interactions with him acting inappropriately at all.” Another noted that Stober has said that he has a significant amount of of unspecified “evidence” that will exonerate him.**

At the 32nd, the most notable comment in favor of a more strongly worded resolution calling on Stober to step down came from former Shoreline city council candidate and recovering addict Jin-ah Kim, who said Stober had repeatedly pressured her to drink with him, despite knowing she is in recovery. Koss Vallejo has also said Stober pressured her to drink when she didn’t want to. The 46th would have passed a watered-down resolution similar to the one passed by the 34th if not for the intervention of former 46th District chair Jesse Piedfort, who also happened to be one of the only men at any of the recent district meetings to speak up strongly on behalf of harassment victims. The resolution that ultimately passed combined a call for Stober to resign with a call for a meeting of PCOs to remove him.

The King County Democrats will hold a meeting this coming Monday night to decide how to proceed with the investigation into Stober’s behavior since the group’s one remaining vice chair (the other two have resigned) was unable to find anyone willing to serve on the proposed investigating panel. Pierce County Democrats chair Tim Farrell, who recently called on another accused sexual harasser, state Rep. David Sawyer (D-29), to resign, will preside.

Earlier today, state Rep. Rebecca Saldaña (D-37), whose own district declined to pass a resolution condemning Stober (the chair of the 37th, Alec Stephens, also suggested that there was a “racial element” to the accusations), sent a letter to the King County Democrats saying that she will withhold all contributions to the group until the Stober situation is resolved.

2. Over at city hall, Mayor Jenny Durkan announced a major cabinet departure on Friday—Catherine Lester, head of the city’s Human Services Department, will be leaving her position and “returning to her family in Toronto, Canada after seven years with the department.” Deputy director Jason Johnson will replace Lester as interim HSD director starting in May.

During her tenure, Lester oversaw the adoption and implementation of Pathways Home, a new approach to homelessness that relies heavily on the private market and short-term vouchers to move people quickly from the streets to housing, a strategy known as “rapid rehousing.” Pathways Home has been criticized by some political leaders and service providers, as well as by this blog, because it makes some highly optimistic assumptions about people’s ability to transition from homelessness to relative financial independence within just a few months without the kind of wraparound services that are provided in traditional transitional housing.

Lester also oversaw the city’s first competitive bidding process for homeless service contracts in more than a decade. That process, which prioritized programs that move people into permanent housing over those providing transitional housing or traditional shelter and hygiene services, was also controversial.

3. Lester defended the city’s efforts to provide restrooms and showers for unsheltered people this week to the Seattle/King County Board of Health, which adopted a resolution calling for additional investments in handwashing facilities, showers, and toilets across King County, while also acknowledging that “there are improvements to be made.” The city recently cut, then partially restored, funding for hygiene centers that serve some of the city’s homeless population, and has appeared sensitive to the issue of whether it is doing enough to ensure that people on the streets can wash their hands or relieve themselves. In a memo that Lester echoed in her comments to the Board of Health, the city enumerated 117 restrooms “available to all members of the public,” including Port-a-Potties near five transit stops and restrooms at libraries, community centers and parks, as well as restrooms at enhanced shelters, which are currently open only to those who stay at those shelters. The resolution notes that King County is currently experiencing a strep outbreak “that is particularly affecting those experiencing homelessness and injection drug users” and that other diseases that hit homeless populations hardest, like hepatitis A, can be controlled simply by giving people places to wash their hands.

* Ginsberg’s letter went on to denounce “some pretty bad reporting on the situation by local bloggers which has only made the entre [sic] situation worse” (ahem). It continued: “Bloggers have made a big deal out of the fact that the Chair got to select 2 of the 5 committee members, but failed to mention that the Vice Chair, operating on behalf of the accuser, also got to choose 2 of the 5. Bloggers have an understandable need to drive people to read their writing with salacious narratives to gain the ad revenue they depend on. But that doesn’t always serve the truth, and in this case it has not.” In fact, this blog—the one that has been reporting on the Stober situation—has mentioned consistently that the vice chairs were asked to appoint two of the four investigating panel members. They are not acting “on behalf of the accused,” and are meant to be a neutral party. The fact that Stober was allowed to choose two of the people who were going to investigate him for a workplace misconduct allegation is highly unusual, to put it very mildly. Finally, as anyone who has ever visited my site can see, I do not have any ads, and therefore have no ad revenues. I look forward to Ginsberg’s explanation of why he feels my ongoing reporting on city hall, land use, transportation, and local elections is “salacious.”

** I have seen at least one piece of this “evidence”—a message from Koss Vallejo making a fat joke about an unspecified person. Stober sent me a screen shot of the message when I asked about this text exchange, between him and King County Committeeman Jon Culver. The two men are expressing frustration about an event planned by the organizers of the Women’s March that apparently conflicted with a King County Democrats event:

Asked about this and similar exchanges, Stober told me, “I’m not going to have this trial occur in the media-it doesn’t respect my board, the process or due process. But I will say this-my close circle of friends and advisors have engaged in internal jokes and conversations that could have and should have been avoided and we will address that and improve. But for Natalia to pretend that is one sided is a far stretch. Here is one of MANY screenshots I’ll be turning over to investigators to show Natalia engaging in the same behavior she’s now accusing others of. This should at least ensure fair reporting. The rest I’ll give to investigators and will provide to you as appropriate.” The screen shot followed. As I’ve mentioned many times, women who play along with men who make inappropriate “jokes” in workplace situations, particularly when those men are their bosses, often do so as a coping mechanism. In any case, “But so-and-so did it too!” is not a generally recognized excuse for workplace misconduct.

1. The treasurer for the King County Democrats, Nancy Podschwit, along with several other members of the group’s finance committee, has called for a special meeting to remove embattled chairman Bailey Stober in a letter documenting no fewer than 13 instances of what they refer to as “inappropriate” spending by Stober. The letter and an accompanying memo add details to the financial case against Stober, who is also accused of targeting his female coworkers and a former employee whom he fired of sexual harassment and bullying.

Among other claims, the finance committee members say that Stober:

• Spent thousands on unauthorized entertainment and travel. The King County Democrats’ budget authorized $3,100 for “travel and entertainment.” “Per the budget, this was intended to be a $100 stipend per state party meeting for the chair and state committee people to attend the three state party meetings, as well as sponsorship for the WSDCC meetings,” the memo says. “However, it appears to include many other trips, and includes mileage, hotels and restaurants. … At no point has the chair asked for budgetary authority for general entertainment or travel purposes.” This extra spending included $2,336 to reimburse Stober for mileage on trips in the Seattle area and around the state, as well as two Airbnbs—one for a state committee meeting, which cost $857, and another for a board retreat, which cost $968. Most members of the board were told to reserve a few daytime hours on a Saturday for the retreat, but a select group was apparently invited to spend two nights at the house on Vashon, which was equipped with a hot tub, with all expenses paid for out of county Party funds. According to the memo, “The chair and some others stayed at the facility for Friday night and Saturday, posting on social media about grilling and drinking, giving the appearance that the chair was partying on contributions to the organization.”

• Spent unauthorized funds on lightning-speed, business-level Internet service. Although the board authorized $250 a month for all utilities, combined, Stober signed a contract with Comcast for its most expensive, top-of-the-line business plan—the “Deluxe 250,” which cost the group more than $500 a month. Comcast recommends the Deluxe 250 for e-commerce businesses with 12 employees or more and “extensive employee and customer wifi usage.” The King County Democrats had one employee (they now have none).

• Misled King County Democrats members and the board about the failure of its annual fundraiser, by claiming they had raised $17,100 when in fact it had resulted in a net loss of $730. (Once late contributions were counted, the event—which cost the party more than twice what was originally budgeted, and several thousand dollars more than a revised budget—raised about $630.) UPDATED: A member of the group has brought additional information to my attention suggesting that some of the revenues from pledges associated with this event may have been logged as part of the group’s general fundraising revenues, which would increase the net profit from the event. I will update this post when I get more detailed information about how these pledges were counted in the group’s budget.

• Misrepresented the success of the group’s fundraising in general, claiming at meetings that the group was meeting or exceeding fundraising goals when, in reality, fundraising fell short by more than $18,000 in 2017.

• Made most of the group’s campaign contributions last year in violation of bylaws that say the board must approve endorsements and contributions. These contributions included $75 to Matthew Sutherland, a candidate in Eastern Washington who was not endorsed by the group, which doesn’t generally endorse or fund candidates outside King County.

• Spent $10,135 more on candidate contributions than he was authorized to spend under the organization’s adopted budget, which included $20,000 for donations to candidates and campaign committees.

• Doled out contributions without board approval, despite repeated warnings that the board needed to sign off on such expenditures. Tara Gallagher, a member of the finance committee, is quoted in the memo saying that she met with Stober to discuss the unapproved contributions, and that he told her he would address it at the next board meeting. However, according to Gallagher, “At the next meeting he went into executive session to discuss the budget, which is weird, and mumbled something about the contributions when it would not show up in the minutes” because executive sessions are private.

• Signed an office lease through December 2018 that cost more than double ($1,800 a month) what the board approved ($800), without telling the board about the extra $12,000 annual commitment.

• Spent $6,600 in unapproved funds remodeling the rented office space—the sort of expense, the memo notes, that is typically borne by a landlord—along with $3,877 on office furniture and $5,500 on “office supplies,” nearly $5,000 more than the approved budget of $517. “It is unclear why this is so far over budget, however the treasurer notes that a laptop for the executive director, a printer and other items for the office were purchased,” the memo notes.

2. Podschwit brought up the financial allegations in a heated meeting of the 37th District Democrats last night, at which several officers proposed a resolution calling on Stober to step down and resolving to withhold dues from the King County Democrats until he does. (Ultimately, the resolution—which mirrored similar proposals that have been approved or will be considered in other districts—failed by a vote of 27 to 16.) In her comments supporting the resolution, Podscwhit described watching helplessly as Stober drained the group’s checking account. (Stober was, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the situation unable to get bank approval to be on the checking account, so instead he directed Koss Vallejo’s spending.)

“I truly believe part of the harassment that Natalia went through was him asking to spend money over my continued telling her not to,” Podschwit said. “And I felt terrible—every time I would get a charge on the bank statement or a check that cleared that I was not told about, the first person I would contact was Natalia, and Natalia would tell me that Bailey told her that he was her boss and he told her to do it. We had repeated conference calls [with Stober and the group’s finance committee] on Monday nights where we went over this over and over again as the money slowly drained out of the checking account. … We have text messages, we have emails, explaining to us in no uncertain terms that he was large and in charge. Much like Donald Trump, he was the only one that could fix it. Well, we’re broke.”

Most of the time allotted for discussing the resolution calling on Stober to resign was taken up by a lengthy, discursive, and often misleading explanation of the proposal by 37th District Democrats chair Alec Stephens, a staunch Stober ally who previously compared his treatment by the King County Democrats to a lynching. (Stober and Stephens are black.) Stephens spent nearly 15 minutes very slowly explaining the events that led up to the resolution (“On the vice chairs’ side, they’re down to one now, as opposed to there were two, then there were originally three, or there were originally four…”) before taking the podium again, this time to speak explicitly against the resolution.

“The very first investigation that was done, in my opinion, was totally flawed. Its biggest flaw was not taking the time that we still have not had to actually hear from the accused.” (According to the vice chairs who did the initial investigation, Stober refused to speak to them without a lawyer present, then stopped responding to their requests to meet). He continued: “I am playing no cards, but there is a racial dynamic to this that is of great concern to me. … I think we have to let the process play out and not just say, ‘Well, we’ve decided, and so”—even without hearing him”—you’ve got to go.” At that point, a man’s voice rang out. “It’s called due process!” “It’s called due process,” Stephens echoed.

Shasti Conrad, the King County Committeewoman for the 37th District and—like Koss Vallejo, Stober’s alleged victim, a woman of color—had a response for that question. Speaking in favor of the resolution, she said: “You want to talk about due process? Where is the due process for the woman he fired while there was an ongoing investigation happening? What about the due process for the women who were subjected to that hostility in that work environment? What about the women who had to put up with the jokes, the comments, feeling less than because there wasn’t space for them to speak up? What about due process for them? … I love this party, but if we are not able to stand up for women’s rights, for victims of sexual misconduct, if we are going to turn a blind eye to blatant financial malfeasance, then I no longer feel safe here.”

Later, Conrad said on Twitter that she was “heartbroken” by the “painful” experience of being “shouted down as I was calling for a Democratic Party free of sexual harassment and a party that is safe for all.”

Meanwhile, a second investigation into Stober remains stalled, as I reported Monday, because the one remaining vice chair has been unable to find volunteers to serve on the five-member panel investigating Stober. Notably, that panel will include two members directly chosen by Stober himself—one reason some potential volunteers have reportedly declined to participate in the process. Stober has called a special meeting of the executive board for next week to discuss next steps in his own investigation.

3. While that meeting was going on (I watched it after the fact thanks to video posted by the King County Precinct Committee Officers’ Media Group, or PCOMG), another meeting, also with a subtle racial subtext, was happening across town. The city council’s Planning, Land Use and Zoning committee held a public hearing at Northgate for residents of Districts 5 and 6, which encompass most of North Seattle, to weigh in on proposed upzones that will impact 6 percent of the two-thirds of Seattle’s residential land that is zoned exclusively for single-family use. Longtime (white) homeowners invoked theoretical ruined gardens and equally theoretical immigrants, refugees, and people of color who would be impacted by allowing more housing in the city, and renters, advocates for workers and low-income people, and even a few homeowners pushed back. I’ve collected those tweets in a Twitter moment.

If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site or making a one-time contribution! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as reporting-related and office expenses. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

1. Embattled King County Democrats chair Bailey Stober, who has refused to step down after an internal investigation concluded he sexually harassed and bullied his sole employee, Natalia Koss Vallejo, before firing her last month, has called a special meeting of the group’s executive board for March 19 to discuss what to do now that efforts to recruit a five-person panel to do a new investigation into Stober’s conduct as chair have failed. Stober is also accused of misappropriating the organization’s funds; among other things, he reportedly spent $14,000 more on campaign contributions than was allocated in last year’s budget.

At a meeting late last month, the King County Democrats’ executive board decided that an initial investigation by the group’s three vice-chairs was inadequate, and decided to let Stober himself appoint two of the members of a five-member panel to investigate the charges against him. The board also decided to expand the investigation to include an investigation of the original investigation, as well as an investigation into who “leaked” information about the complaints to the media, including me. Two of the five members would be appointed by the group’s vice chairs, and the fifth would be approved jointly by Stober and the vice-chairs, giving Stober himself effective control over the makeup of half the group investigating him for workplace misconduct.

Over the course of the investigation, two of the group’s three vice chairs have resigned, and the third, Orchideh Raisdanai, has apparently been unable to find anyone who will serve on the panel. Several potential members reportedly declined because they did not want to lend credibility to the process.

In an email to the executive board, Stober quoted from a note sent by the King County Democrats’ Democratic National Committee representative David McDonald—a Stober ally who oversaw the closed-door executive board meeting that led to the decision to form a new five-member panel—outlining the purpose of the meeting. (Stober and one of his allies, state committeeman Jon Culver, have begun monitoring and controlling the flow of emails to and from the general executive board address, according to group members who have tried to email the board, so that board members don’t see every email sent to their address and outgoing messages are reportedly monitored and approved by Stober or Culver.) “The motion adopted at the February 27 meeting did not specify a plan B in the event that the requested Committee could not be constituted in the time frame specified,” McDonald wrote. “Accordingly, the Chair was requested to call a special meeting of the Executive Board for the purpose of adopting a plan B procedure or taking other appropriate action in light of the events.” What that “Plan B procedure” will be remains unclear.

Tim Farrell, who chairs the Pierce County Democrats, will oversee the meeting. Last year, the Pierce County Democrats were fined $22,600 for breaking campaign-finance laws by repeatedly failing to properly report donations and spending over the course of three years. The King County Democrats are currently negotiating their own fine over similar charges, and Stober is now the subject of two new, separate complaints charging that he and other party officers concealed the group’s dire financial situation from the public, failed to report pledges and expenditures, and failed to file other reports properly and promptly.

On Wednesday, members of the 34th District Democrats who want Stober to step down will propose a resolution calling on Stober to resign. Several other Democratic groups across King County, including the 43rd, 11th, 45th, and 36th Legislative District Dems, have passed or are considering resolutions withholding funds from the King County Democrats until Stober steps down, but the 34th has not yet done so. The group is chaired by David Ginsberg, a stalwart Stober supporter who told the Seattle Times that he didn’t believe Stober had harassed Koss Vallejo because they had socialized and seemed “chummy” before Stober fired her. Meanwhile, another group that has been silent so far is the 37th District Democrats; their chair, Alec Stephens, evocatively compared the investigation into Stober to a lynching at last month’s meeting.

An open letter calling on Stober to resign now has nearly 200 signatures from Democratic leaders, precinct committee officers, and elected officials.

2. The Seattle Ethics and Elections commission will release its first postelection report on the Democracy Voucher program today, featuring information about which voters took advantage of the opportunity to allocate public funds to which candidates, and how; how much money the program cost; and how (and when) Seattle residents spent their vouchers.

Some highlights from the SEEC’s report:

• Not surprisingly, most people allocated their vouchers—a total of $100 per registered voter, divided into four $25 increments—just before the primary and/or general elections. In July, prior to the August 1, 2017 primary election, the city received 11,548 vouchers; in October, leading up to the November 7 general election, voters returned 14,288 vouchers to the city. However, quite a few vouchers were returned well before the May 19 deadline for candidates to declare they were running—11,530 vouchers came in between January, when vouchers landed in mailboxes, and April, suggesting that candidates who filed early (like unsuccessful Position 8 candidate Jon Grant) had some success locking down voucher contributions before other candidates had a chance to get in their races. Voters returned a total of just over 72,000 vouchers in all.

• About one in five vouchers came in to the city directly from the campaigns, which solicited voucher contributions from voters; the rest came in through the mail (78 percent) or were emailed or delivered to the ethics board by hand.

• The overwhelming majority—76 percent—of people who returned their vouchers to the city gave them to just one candidate, rather than distributing the four $25 vouchers to different candidates.

• The requirement that candidates secure at least 400 signatures and 400 contributions of $10 or more appears to have been a significant barrier to voucher program participation. Only six candidates ultimately qualified for public funding with vouchers, and one, Hisam Goeuli, has pointed out that it took him so long to collect the required signatures—27 weeks—that by the time he had access to voucher funding, it was too late in the campaign for him to benefit from it. However, the other five candidates who qualified all appeared on the general election ballot, most of them after making it through the August primary.

• In 2017, the voucher program came in about $787,000 under its $3 million budget; under the initiative that authorized the program, unused funds are reserved for spending in future years.

If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site or making a one-time contribution! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as reporting-related and office expenses. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

The 36th District Democrats’ executive board approved a resolution tonight that will, if adopted by the full body, withhold dues from the King County Democrats until the county party chairman, Bailey Stober, resigns or is removed from his position. The 43rd District Democrats are considering a similar resolution, and more districts could follow. Meanwhile, King County, Stober’s employer, has appointed an outside investigator to gather information on Stober as part of the county’s own investigation into Stober’s conduct. And Erin Jones, one of Stober’s picks to serve on the five-member panel that will conduct a second investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed an employee and misused party funds, had to decline the appointment due to a conflict of interest relating to Jones’ work for the same county office that employs Stober and is currently investigating him.

Stober, as I’ve reported, was the subject of an investigation last month that concluded he had sexually harassed and bullied the group’s lone employee, Natalia Koss Vallejo, before firing her on February 2, ostensibly because she threw a cup of ice on a car. (That incident was caught on camera and the video was posted anonymously on Youtube; according to staff at the hotel where the camera was located, Stober was the only person who requested the video.) After a heated debate over whether the initial investigation, conducted by the three vice chairs of the organization, was adequate, the group’s executive board held a lengthy closed-door executive session last week. Afterward, they voted to appoint a five-member panel to redo the investigation, with two members appointed by Stober himself, one member appointed jointly by Stober and the Democrats’ two remaining vice chairs (one, Cat Williams, stepped down shortly after the three released the results of their initial investigation), and two members appointed by the vice chairs. The job of the panel has been expanded beyond the original sexual harassment and financial misconduct allegations, and now includes an investigation into the original investigation, as well as a separate investigation to find out who “leaked” information about the executive board meeting, the original complaint, and other internal conversations and documents to the press.

Since that meeting, one of the two remaining vice chairs, Michael Maddux, has resigned, leaving the last vice chair standing, Orchideh Raisdanai, scrambling to come up with two people who will serve on the panel alongside Stober’s hand-picked investigators. So far, several have reportedly been asked, but declined, to serve, saying they don’t want to give the imprimatur of credibility to the proceedings. Stober told the group on Tuesday that he had chosen his two investigators: Erin Jones, a former candidate whom Stober supported for state schools superintendent, and Jill Geary, an attorney who was elected to the Seattle school board in 2015. However, by yesterday afternoon, Jones had withdrawn her name from consideration after a call from the King County Assessor’s office, where Stober works, suggesting Jones had a conflict of interest because she is the contract racial and social justice trainer for the assessor’s office. (In 2018, her contract is for $18,750). When Jones first received her contract with the assessor’s office, in February 2017, Stober posted a selfie with Jones to his Facebook page. He also hosted a fundraiser for Jones and wrote an op/ed for the Kent Reporter urging readers to support her.

Stober was a consultant on Geary’s campaign, which paid him nearly $20,000 for his services between May and October 2015.

Stober has refused to step down. He has been placed on leave from his job as a communications director for King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson until the allegations are resolved, but is still being paid his full county salary, which, as of 2016, was $87,821 a year. The county has launched an investigation into Stober’s conduct as head of the county Democrats, and has retained attorney Patty Eakes, of the firm Calfo, Eakes & Ostrovsky, to gather information from witnesses. Eakes is probably best known for prosecuting serial killer Gary Ridgway in the Green River Killer case. Chief deputy assessor Al Dams said this afternoon that the choice of Eakes—a high-profile attorney in private practice who counts employment disputes as one of her specialities—is an indication that “we take these allegations very seriously” and are doing “a comprehensive and thorough fact-finding mission to determine whether the charges have “any bearing on our office.” [Editor’s note: Dams requested that I clarify his quote in response to apparent confusion about whether the King County Assessor’s office was duplicating the King County Democrats’ investigation, which they are not.] He did not know how much the county assessor’s office was paying Eakes, but noted that similar investigations have cost between $7,000 and $10,000.

Meanwhile, the King County Democrats remains essentially insolvent, with ongoing financial needs that include an office in Auburn that costs $1,800 a month (the same office at which Stober told me he was sitting comfortable, “heat blasting,” late last month). Nancy Podschwit, the group’s treasurer, told me that the group’s budget only allocated $800 a month for office rent, but Stober unilaterally decided the higher rent was okay, since there was enough money coming in at the time and it could be borrowed from other budget items. Since the King County Democrats are a nonprofit, though, they’re supposed to follow their approved budget closely and keep track of where, precisely, the money is going. So, for example, spending $14,000 more than what his board approved on campaign contributions last year, as Stober apparently did, isn’t just a matter of shuffling budget line items; it’s using money that was allocated for one thing the nonprofit does (say, pay for ongoing office expenses) for a completely different thing (contributions to influence the outcome of a political campaign), and that can have significant tax implications.

In addition to ongoing costs (the $1,800 rent; Comcast bills totaling more than $500 a month), the King County Democrats are about to find out how much they must pay the state for failing to disclose tens of thousands of campaign expenditures and contributions in a timely fashion in 2016. And the same conservative activist who initiated that complaint, Glen Morgan, has filed a new complaint against the group, charging that Stober illegally used campaign funds for personal use by traveling around the state on the King County Democrats’ dime. Stober spent thousands of dollars on travel, including mileage, entertainment, and hotels, but said almost all his out-of-county travel was to support struggling Democratic groups across the state; however, Stober’s desire to run for state party chair against incumbent Tina Podlodowski has long been an open secret, and Stober confirmed that he was considering it before the allegations against him blew up last week. Morgan says Stober contacted him directly to argue that his complaint was baseless. “Bailey contacted me and indicated that he felt my complaint was without merit because the information presented by those attempting to remove him was inaccurate,” Morgan told me.

1. Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff escaped serious reprimand on Wednesday for alleged behavior toward agency employees that included looking women up and down and giving them “elevator eyes,” using racially insensitive language, swearing at employees, and using an abrasive style that both the public memo on the investigation into his behavior and King County Executive Dow Constantine described as “East Coast” (whatever that’ssupposed to mean). With only Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Seattle City Council member Rob Johnson dissenting (because they believed Rogoff’s punishment was insufficient), the board voted to require Rogoff to create a “leadership development plan” to improve his listening, self-awareness, and relationship building” skills and to assign a three-member panel, made up of Sound Transit board members, to monitor his progress on the plan for six months.

Durkan skipped the launch of an NHL season ticket drive and the raising of the NHL flag over the Space Needle to be at today’s board meeting, an indication of how seriously she took the charges. Before voting, Durkan read the following statement:

“The issues raised and on which we were briefed led me to believe the conclusion that these [performance] factors cannot be met, and so I will be voting against this motion. I think the facts that we have been briefed on and the conclusions reached by our Counsel demonstrate that Sound Transit is not felt to be a safe workplace for all employees, that they do not feel that they can act without repercussions, and that there are many who feel that their work is not valued. I am also concerned that the statements that were alleged to have been made by the CEO, and the actions that were raised – raised the issue of racial bias and insensitivity, as well as other workplace harassment issues. I do not believe that these issues have been resolved as completely as indicated by Counsel, and that having three Board Members oversee the daily work of this CEO is not the resolution, and so I will be voting against this motion.”

Neither Durkan nor Johnson had any further comment after the meeting.

The memo on the investigation lays out a few specific examples of behaviors that the investigation deemed inappropriate, including a Black History Month event in 2016 at which Rogoff “reportedly made comments condescending toward persons of color” and a 2017 incident in which he dismissively told a female employee, “Honey, that ain’t ever going to happen” in response to a question. But the memo, and most of the Sound Transit board, is also quick to chalk much of Rogoff’s reported behavior up to difficulty navigating the politeness of Pacific Northwest culture and the fact that the previous CEO, Joni Earl, was so beloved that Rogoff faced built-in challenges from the time he was hired, in late 2015. To wit:

In the meeting, King County Executive Dow Constantine, who was chair of the Sound Transit board when Rogoff was hired, said he talked to Rogoff when he applied for the position and “cautioned him that his directness was going to run up against a very different way of interacting to which we are accustomed here in the Pacific Northwest, and that he was going to have to modify his manner and understand the local culture if we were going to be successful.” Constantine also described Rogoff as “bracingly direct” before praising his effectiveness.

Rogoff echoed Constantine’s complimentary assessment of his style in his own memo responding to the allegations. In the memo, Rogoff acknowledges (using language that reads a bit like a job applicant saying that his worst flaw is his “relentless attention to detail”) that his “directness and unvarnished clarity did not sit well with some staff” and that he was, at times, “overly intense in articulating my expectations for performance.” Rogoff goes on to explicitly deny some of the allegations,” calling some of the claims made during the investigation “misquoted, misunderstood, mischaracterized or false. I don’t yell at people. I don’t disparage small city mayors and I don’t shove chairs to make a point,” two incidents that were detailed in the documents released today. “I was shocked to read some of the characterizations on this list.”

A document labeled “Peter Rogoff, CEO ST: Note to file” describes some of those alleged incidents. They include: Directing a staffer to tell Seattle Times reporter Mike Lindblom to “go fuck himself”; yelling over the phone at a staffer in a conversation that lasted from 11pm to 1am; standing up at a meeting and saying “When I give direction, it’s for action, not rumination” and shoving a chair; saying that he “couldn’t give a flying fuck about how things were when Joni [Earl] was here, because she’s not here anymore”; using the term “flying fuck” constantly “to everyone”; and the aforementioned incidents in which he allegedly looked women up and down and gave them “elevator eyes.”

King County Council member and Sound Transit board member Claudia Balducci said after the meeting that she has “seen a lot of improvement” in Rogoff’s behavior. “I think that at least shows that it’s possible, and therefore that we could have a successful CEO. If he can manage people with respect and dignity then I felt he deserves the opportunity.” Balducci disagreed that Rogoff’s management style could be explained away by “regional” differences. “I’m from New York,” she said, and “I think everybody, no matter where they’re from, knows how to be respectful. The things that we were talking about were more than just style.”

Although Rogoff did not receive a bonus this year, he did receive a five percent cost of living adjustment, which puts his salary at just over $328,000.

2. The city’s progressive revenue task force held its final meeting on Wednesday morning, adopting a report (final version to come) that recommends new taxes that could bring in as much as $150 million a year for housing and services for homeless and low-income people in Seattle. Half of that total, $75 million, would come from some version of an employee hours tax; the variables include what size business will pay the tax ($8 million vs. $10 million in gross revenues), the tax rate and whether it will be a flat per-employee fee or a percentage of revenues; and whether businesses that don’t hit the threshold for the tax will have to pay a so-called “skin in the game” fee for doing business in the city. The task force also talked about making the tax graduated based on employer size, but noted that such a tax may not be legal and would almost certainly be subject to immediate legal challenges.

The original memo on the head tax proposals suggests that the “skin in the game” fee should be $200 and that the fee would kick in once a business makes gross revenues—not net profits—of $500,000. During the conversation Wednesday morning, some task force members floated the idea of lowering that threshold to just $100,000, a level that would require many small businesses, such as street-level retailers, to pay the fee, regardless of what their actual profit margins are. However, after council member and task force chair Lorena Gonzalez pointed out that the city has not done a racial equity analysis to see how any of the head tax proposals would impact minority business owners, the group decided to keep the trigger at $500,000 in gross revenues. Additionally, they decided to raise the recommended fee to $395—a number that was thrown out, seemingly at random, by a task force member who called it “psychological pricing” (on the theory that $395 feels like significantly less than $400).

The other $75 million would come, in theory, from a combination of other taxes, some of them untested in Seattle and likely to face legal challenges, including a local excise tax, an excess compensation tax, a tax on “speculative real estate investment activity,” and an increase in the real estate excise tax. Legal challenges could delay implementation of new taxes months or years, and—although no one brought it up at yesterday’s meeting—REET revenues always take a nosedive during economic downturns, making them a fairly volatile revenue source.

3. The Teamsters Local 174 confirmed yesterday that they will no longer allow the King County Democrats to hold meetings at their building in Tukwila, after a contentious meeting Tuesday night that lasted until nearly midnight. My report on that meeting, at which the group decided to extend and expand the investigation into sexual harassment and financial misconduct claims against the group’s chairman, Bailey Stober, is here.

According to Teamsters senior business agent Tim Allen, the decision wasn’t directly related to the allegations against Stober, but had to do with the behavior of some of the group’s members and their treatment of a custodial worker who had to clean up after the group, who may have been drinking alcohol on the premises. “We have standards of conduct that people are supposed to live up to” around how guests treat the building and whether they “treat our [staffers] properly,” Allen said. “They had the whole building to clean, and usually we expect [groups that use the building] to clean up after themselves. Stober, contacted by email, said “I’ve heard varying degrees of that story” (that people were drinking, continued to do so after they were asked to stop, and left a mess), “but I can’t confirm that because I was sitting in the front of the room and have no knowledge of what was happening outside of the room.” Many other local progressive groups, including some legislative Democratic groups, have alcohol at their meetings (many provide beer or wine for a suggested donation), but some venues do not allow alcohol without a banquet license.

If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site or making a one-time contribution! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as reporting-related and office expenses. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

Quick commercial break:This story took many hours of reporting, including but by no means limited to most of the day today and the five-hour meeting I sat through in Tukwila last night. If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, including long-form stories like this one, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site or making a one-time contribution! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as reporting-related and office expenses. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

In a meeting Tuesday night in Tukwila that lasted nearly five hours, including an almost three-hour closed-door executive session from which officials repeatedly emerged to make sure no members of the press were listening at the doors and that no members of the body were “leaking” information about what was going on inside, the King County Democrats decided to appoint a five-member panel to conduct a new investigation into the group’s embattled chairman, Bailey Stober. Stober, as I reported Monday, is accused of verbally harassing and bullying the group’s former executive director Natalia Koss Vallejo, whom he fired on February 2, and misusing party funds.

Stober did not step down and continues to deny every charge against him. He has been on paid administrative leave from his job as communications director for King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson since February 12 “so the Department of Assessments can gather and review information about allegations against him related to his position as Chair of the King County Democrats,” according to King County chief deputy assessor Al Dams.

The panel charged with investigating Stober, which is supposed to be appointed within the next two to three days, will include two people hand-picked by Stober himself. The third member is supposed to be appointed jointly by Stober and the two party vice-chairs who investigated the initial complaint and concluded that most of the charges were “founded,” and the other two are supposed to be appointed by the vice-chairs. I say “supposed to” because one of the two remaining vice chairs, Michael Maddux, resigned on Wednesday night; a second vice chair, Cat Williams, had already stepped down before last night’s meeting and sent a statement to the meeting about why she stepped down, which was read during the executive session. On Wednesday night, Maddux told me he resigned because Stober “does not care about protecting workers. In fact, thanks to expanding the scope of the investigation to include finding whoever leaked [the vice chairs’ report on the complaint], what they really care about is protecting themselves—not protecting, workers not protecting women. It shows what their priorities are, and that’s not an organization I’m willing to be associated with.”

On Wednesday night, former vice chair Michael Maddux said he resigned because Stober “does not care about protecting workers. In fact, thanks to expanding the scope of the investigation to include finding whoever leaked [the vice chairs’ report on the complaint], what they really care about is protecting themselves.

“It shows what their priorities are, and that’s not an organization I’m willing to be associated with.”

The group will also do a separate investigation, requested by Stober, into the vice chairs’ investigation itself, which Stober and his supporters say was unfair and incomplete. In his complaint, Stober claims, among other charges, that the vice chairs violated the group’s anti-harassment policy by “promoting and sharing ‘offensive written comments,'” which appears to refer to the obscene names he is accused of using to describe Koss Vallejo. Finally, the group plans to do another separate investigation, added last night, into who “leaked” documents and details of what transpired during the executive session Tuesday night to the press, including me. (More on that in a moment.)

According to the report on the complaint distributed in yesterday’s closed session, Koss Vallejo described

extensive harassment on behalf of Stober, including being called ‘bitch,’ ‘cunt,’ ‘slut,’ and being demeaned regularly in front of other people in the political community. She recounted him taking her phone and posting an obscene post to her Facebook while she was using the restroom, and not alerting her for an hour, during which numerous people saw and interacted with the post. She recounted an instance wherein she was driving, and Stober was a passenger, and he sprayed a bottle of silly string in her face and mouth, while recording on his phone, ultimately posting to Instagram. She reported numerous instances of Stober making threats with financials toward her, and referring to her and [another party cited in the complaint] in derogatory terms when they questioned the efficacy of his spending habits. She described extensive demands on her to engage in excessive drinking, and last minute trips to Eastern Washington, with fears of retaliation if she did not comply. [Koss Vallejo has requested a separate meeting to discuss her termination and indicated potential retaliation from Stober. She expressed concerns about Stober sharing misinformation about her termination during the upcoming Special Meeting.

The atmosphere at Tuesday night’s marathon meeting was one of grievance, anger, and high-pitched paranoia. Before those of us who were not voting or invited members of the group were asked to leave, the group’s treasurer, Nancy Podschwit, confirmed and elaborated on what she told me over the weekend: The King County Democrats are out of money, and have been both overspending and bringing in far less money than their budget assumes. In January and February of this year, according to a documented distributed by Podschwit, the organization was supposed to bring in $27,649. Instead, they raised just $7,023, leaving the group with just $3,886 at the end of February. Podscwit said yesterday that the group will be “in the red three grand” by the time she pays all their bills this month, including an $1,800-a-month lease for office space in Auburn, and that’s before an anticipated fine stemming from campaign reporting violation charges from the state attorney general’s office that could total tens of thousands of dollars more.

“She described extensive demands on her to engage in excessive drinking, and last minute trips to Eastern Washington, with fears of retaliation if she did not comply.”

Last night, Stober, who told me over the weekend that the organization was doing fine financially—”I am sitting in the Party office with the rent paid, lights on, heat blasting and nothing is suffering here,” he said—suddenly produced a check for $5,000 he said he had just procured; later, I confirmed that this check was from King County Executive Dow Constantine, who pledged the money in November and just paid up this month. However, Wednesday afternoon, Constantine confirmed that he had rescinded the check pending the outcome of the investigation. In response to my tweet confirming that he had asked for the money back, Constantine tweeted, “The recent check to the King County Democrats has been put on hold. It was for the balance of a pledge from 2017. I regularly donate to the State, County, and my local LD Dem organizations, and others. I look forward to helping KCD again as soon as this issue has been resolved.”

In last night’s executive session, Podshwit said Stober’s spending outside what was allowed by the adopted budget included $3,000 in excessive expenditures on travel and entertainment and $14,000 in excessive expenditures on candidate contributions. Podschwit said that she had resigned three times over what she considered Stober’s excessive spending, and that whenever she questioned him about spending funds that were not authorized by the adopted budget, she was told that he had “ultimate power.”

For more details on Stober’s spending, which included thousands of dollars on hotels, at bars and restaurants, and a weekend Vashon Island retreat for party members at a pricey Airbnb house that included a hot tub, check out my original post.

In last night’s executive session, Stober was asked to step aside temporarily while the investigation was ungoing; he refused. “No. You want to come see the evidence, come see the evidence,” he said. Stober was also given the opportunity to speak at length about how he felt about the allegations. (Koss Vallejo and her invited witnesses were not allowed to speak, except to answer a single question about what time on February 2 Stober fired Koss Vallejo). Stober claimed his attorney had told him that his opponents could not try him in a court of law but that they would try him “in the court of public opinion,” and spoke repeatedly about “justice” and “due process,” invoking Martin Luther King Junior and the fact that “we teach our children the value of fairness” but seem to have forgotten what that means. He spoke so loudly and adamantly that at one point, a member asked him to take a less aggressive tone, and he responded by saying that people tend to get fired up when they’re “falsely accused.”

When I spoke with him by phone and later by email over the weekend, Stober denied all of the charges, including the financial allegations and the claim that he bullied or used inappropriate language around Koss Vallejo. “When there’s an investigation committee or whatever the board decides to do, you wouldn’t see me saying any of those things,” Stober told me. “You wouldn’t see anything like that. As soon as I give it to an investigator, I’m more than happy to say it to the media as well. It’s just not existent. I went through every text, every Facebook message, every email exchange I ever have had—no.”

The allegations, it’s worth noting, appear to be about verbal, not written, communications; therefore, any review of documents would not address the verbal behavior that was described in the complaint. However, screen shots of what appear to be text message exchanges between Stober, Koss-Vallejo, and another Party official appear to contradict at least the spirit of Stober’s claim. In the texts, Stober appears to make numerous disparaging jokes about women, complaining that the organizers of the Women’s March in Seattle chose to hold their annual Day of Action on January 21, one day after the King County Democrats had planned their own event. “Goddamnit, we need to tell the Women’s March to know their fucking role,” a text message that appears to be from Stober says. “THEY GONNA BAKE COOKIES ALL DAY TO PROTEST? CLEAN THE HOUSE?? JESUS.” In another message, Stober appears to joke about printing off an award certificate recognizing a party member accused of raping a woman at the group’s annual retreat last year as “party rapist of the year so everyone feels better.” Another shows an image of a monkey at a desk, with the message “Honestly looks like Natalia trying to work.”

In another message, Stober appears to joke about printing off an award certificate recognizing a party member accused of raping a woman at the group’s annual retreat last year as “party rapist of the year so everyone feels better.”

I asked Stober specifically about these messages, along with another one suggesting that another person in the thread “send [former King County Democratic Party chair] Rich Erwin a chocolate covered dildo and tell him to get fucked,” via email. Stober responded: “I’m not going to have this trial occur in the media – it doesn’t respect my board, the process or due process. But I will say this – my close circle of friends and advisors have engaged in internal jokes and conversations that could have and should have been avoided and we will address that and improve. But for Natalia to pretend that is one sided is a far stretch. … Here is one of MANY screenshots I’ll be turning over to investigators to show Natalia engaging in the same behavior she’s now accusing others of.”

Attached was a screen shot of an apparent text message exchange in which Koss Vallejo making a mild fat-shaming joke about an unknown person. The implication appeared to be that if an employee who answered to Stober made off-color jokes, it makes his own comments excusable. One important issue that has surfaced during the #MeToo era is the fact that women in subordinate positions who have been harassed or sexually assaulted by more powerful men (such as men who have the ability to fire them) often appear “chummy” with the men who are targeting them (a word used by one of Stober’s defenders, 34th District Democrats chairman David Ginsberg, in the initial story on the complaint in the Seattle Times), appearing cheerful in photos or going along with behavior they may not feel comfortable with.

Stober has consistently claimed that he did not get an opportunity to respond to the vice chairs’ investigation, and specifically that he was not given an opportunity to be interviewed himself. Last night, he said the meeting was “the first time I have ever seen” the full report on the investigation. The vice-chairs, he said in our conversation last weekend, reached out to him late in the afternoon of February 2, when the complaint was filed, and told him that “they were going to interview me. All I asked for is, ‘I can’t do it this week, but I can do it any time after that.’ My week was booked.” That same day, Stober called a special meeting of the Democrats so he could hold an executive session “to brief the board on sensitive materials.” Those materials turned out to include details about why he said he fired Koss Vallejo, according to witnesses.

Back at the King County Democrats meeting, I spent three hours sitting outside the room with several representatives from the live-streaming organization King County Precinct Committee Officers Media Group and a number of people who had been asked to leave the room. I set up my computer on the floor outside, where, very quickly, it became obvious that Stober and his allies were extremely concerned about “leaks” from people inside the meeting. Not only did Stober claim, in open session, that people who talked to the press about what happened in executive session might be subject to a libel lawsuit, he claimed in the executive session to have “sworn statements” from “members of the media” that would prove that the vice chairs had leaked documents about the investigation before he had a chance to review them. At one point, a sergeant at arms came out and told me she had been asked to stand watch over me and make sure I didn’t communicate with anyone inside the meeting. (I declined to let her stand over my shoulder and look at my computer, and she made it clear she didn’t have any interest in doing so in the first place.) The sergeant at arms, Galaxy Marshall, told me she had also been told that I went into the women’s restroom at the same time as Koss Vallejo, and that she was supposed to ask me what we talked about. Obviously, I declined to do that as well (it was clear that Marshall didn’t want to monitor me at the time, and she said as much herself on Twitter the following day.)

In the day or so since the meeting, I have spoken to several members of the King County Democrats who are thinking of leaving the group. Their shared frustration can be summed up as: This is not what we signed up for. Even if there is a new investigation into Stober, the vice chairs, and the so-called “leakers,” it will almost certainly take months, and require everyone involved, including Koss Vallejo, to be interviewed again, a process that could involve responding to submissions from Stober like the trove of text messages from Koss Vallejo that he appears to believe will vindicate him. Stober has reportedly suggested that bad press from “leaks” is at least partly to blame for the group’s anemic fundraising. I would argue that the existence of a significant investigation into sexual harassment and financial impropriety is more damaging to the King County Democrats than “leaks.” Moreover, “find the leakers” is a phrase more closely associated with a different political party.

*Quick civics lesson: Whistleblowing, or “leaking,” is free speech protected under the First Amendment that is backed up by considerable case law. Truth is an absolute defense to libel. Reporting a fact that another person wants to conceal is not libel. Also, Robert’s Rules of Order, the rules under which the King County Democrats generally operate, is not the law.

Democratic Party elected officials, staffers, and volunteers are calling for the resignation of the 26-year-old chairman of the King County Democratic Party, Bailey Stober, after allegations (first reported by the Seattle Times) that Stober harassed and bullied a female staffer, Natalia Koss-Vallejo, before firing her a little over two weeks ago. Stober said he fired Koss-Vallejo after and incident in Bellingham on January 28 in which she tossed the dregs of an iced coffee onto a car that had an ICE cap displayed in its back window. Asked why the firing, which took place on February 2, was so urgent that he couldn’t wait to consult his organization’s board, Stober said, “I’m elected to lead our organization, essentially as the CEO, and sometimes I have to make decisions in a timely manner, and waiting a month to fire someone is not timely.”) Full disclosure: I worked with Koss Vallejo at NARAL Pro-Choice Washington between May 2016 and March 2017. She was a field organizer, and I was a part-time communications director.

Earlier this month, three vice chairs of the group launched an investigation in response to a third-party complaint about Stober’s behavior and concluded that in the months before he fired her, he had called Koss-Vallejo a “cunt” and a “stupid bitch,” pressured her repeatedly to go out drinking with him, created an intimidating workplace environment, and misappropriated Party funds.

A week or so after receiving the complaint (according to a report signed by all three vice chairs, they received a verbal complaint on January 24, followed by a formal written complaint on February 1), the chairs called for Stober’s resignation or, failing that, limitations on his ability to spend money and hire or fire staff. Since last week, more than 70 people, including former state Rep. Jessyn Farrell and current state Sen. Lisa Wellman, have signed an open letter calling for him to step down. “Numerous members of the organization have witnessed and expressed concerns about his fiscal irresponsibility, his bullying, and his outright harassment over the course of many months,” the letter says.

In a statement, a campaign volunteer who shared the office in Auburn with Stober and Koss-Vallejo, Melissa Taylor, said she had witnessed “a significant amount of verbal harassment by Bailey of Natalia and other volunteers” and had been approached by two other unidentified woman about Stober’s inappropriate behavior. “This verbal harassment of many individuals included derogatory comments about weight, hair color, relationship status and other sensitive personal topics,” Taylor wrote.

Taylor, who was on the co-founding committee for an organization called Emerge Washington that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office, said she approached Stober repeatedly about his behavior. “If Bailey had engaged in any of the conversations that I and others tried to have … if he had shown any ability to be reflective—[like] ‘I may have hurt somebody and maybe I didn’t mean it’—but there was none of that. And so, for me, it’s his behavior after there was an investigation that gets me to the point that I think he has to resign. Contrition and remorse and a resolve to fixing the behavior would go a long way.”

In the course of reporting this story, I spoke with more than a dozen women and men who have worked or interacted with Stober over the years. Many of them describe a pattern of behavior that they say includes bullying, repeated comments on women’s appearances, and pressure to drink alcohol. Two provided a link to a video in which Stober can be seen berating a volunteer for speaking out of order (Editor’s note: I have removed the link to the video at the woman’s request.) “I’m realizing how much stuff I let go because I didn’t realize, ‘Okay, this is unprofessional,” says Rachael Ludwick, committeewoman for the 37th District, speaking in her capacity as an individual. “Some of the less egregious behavior was happening in meetings, like aggressively berating people—can you imagine how is he going to act with someone he has power over?”

Summer Stinson, an employment attorney who serves as policy director for the 36th District Democrats, says she told Stober “he needed to be more aware of his treatment of women”; after that didn’t happen, she says, she helped the woman who originally called one of the vice chairs file a formal complaint about Stober’s alleged behavior toward Koss-Vallejo.

Stober has denied all the allegations. In a defiant video originally posted publicly on Facebook,, Stober called the investigation “farcical and a sloppy disaster” and claimed that he was denied “due process” in what he called a “he said she said” case.

“I’m embarrassed to have to waste your time,” Stober tells the camera. “When you challenge the status quo, when you stand up to power, and you do so apologetically, they come for you. They work to silence you, to discredit you, and to make you go away.”

In an interview, Stober told me he was not given sufficient time to respond to the charges, and that he would cooperate fully with a “fair investigation.” (The complaint was filed on February 1 and the vice-chairs finished their preliminary investigation on February 5.) “It’s impossible to disprove something that didn’t happen and where there’s been no fair investigation,” he said.

In the Facebook post accompanying his video, Stober quotes Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg explaining why people accused in court have a right to due process. “[T]he person who is accused has a right to defend herself or himself,” the post quotes Ginsberg as saying. “I couldn’t agree more,” Stober added. Due process—a term that has come up frequently in response to harassment and assault allegations in the #MeToo era—is a legal term that does not necessarily apply to the removal of volunteer officers of political parties. Stober’s post concludes with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.” “The Negros’ great stumbling block in the drive toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.” In a post on the 36th District Democrats’ Facebook page denouncing Stober and calling for his resignation, Sophia Danenberg, a state party commiteewoman for the district, said that “seeing a harasser use an MLK quote today to defend his irresponsible, bullying, dangerous behaviors made me want to vomit.” (I have quoted Danenberg’s post with her permission.)

Stober told me over the weekend that he has no plans to resign. “Sexual harassment? It didn’t occur, period,” he says. “I’m gay. I’m not sexually harassing women. It’s impossible.” (Gay men can sexually harass women. As Taylor notes, harassment “isn’t about sex; it’s about power.”) As for calling Koss Vallejo a “cunt,” Stober says he hasn’t used “the ‘c’ word” since he was 15 and his mom socked him in the mouth for muttering it under his breath, and that he and his friends may say things like “bitch, please” privately, but that he would never call a woman a bitch in a disparaging manner.

In another example of behavior that Koss Vallejo says crossed a line, she and several other women say that Stober grabbed Koss Vallejo’s phone one night at a bar and, using her Facebook account, posted “I shit my pants” on her Facebook wall. Stober said he could not comment on that allegation. In another incident, which Stober filmed and posted on his public Instagram feed, Stober can be seen spraying Koss Vallejo with Silly String while she is driving her car. The caption: “My bad.”

Stober called a special executive session for February 8, at which he discussed his reasons for firing Koss Vallejo with members of the group’s executive board, according to witnesses. He says the incident with the cup of coffee, which was caught on security footage and posted to Youtube by an anonymous account called DemsAre BadPeople that has one follower and one post, was only the latest in a number of “incidents of immaturity that occurred throughout [Koss Vallejo’s] employment.” A source with direct access to the video says Stober is the one who requested it; Stober denies that he did so.

“That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Stober told me. “If she were a junior staffer somewhere, we would coach and correct, but you can’t be the executive director and pour coffee all over someone’s car because you disagree with their First Amendment rights.” (Both Koss Vallejo and the treasurer of the King County Democrats say Stober offered Koss Vallejo a raise a few months before she was fired. Stober denies this, saying that he “put a raise in the budget to give to the Executive Director position not because of the incumbent in the role but because when I created the position I promised my Board that I would do my best to increase the salary in the next year to a more adequate cost of living for how expensive King County was.”

“Deals are made over drinks,” Stober said. “Meetings occur in bars. It’s not the 8 to 5 business world where you meet at Starbucks all the time. It’s a different culture, and people need to realize that.”

After the vice chairs announced the results of their investigation, Stober filed his own counterclaim against two of the three vice chairs, Michael Maddux and Orchideh Raisdanai (Cat Williams, the third vice chair, resigned in the midst of the fracas over Stober’s leadership), charging that they had overstepped their authority and were behaving “in a dictator type fashion.” In the four-page memo, Stober also accused Maddux of violating the King County Democrats’ harassment policy by “promoting and sharing uninvestigated ‘offensive written comments’—the contents of the complaint itself, which included the words “bitch” and “cunt”— and said that he is “in consultation with counsel on the libel and defamation that have been done by the named parties and how it has impacted the organization and me personally.”

In her statement, Koss Vallejo describes the atmosphere Stober created at the office as “relentlessly unprofessional, abusive, and sophomoric … Bailey was, at first, exciting to work around—but the novelty of having a boss who liked to ‘party’ wore off quickly. A pattern of harassment and abuse, directed at me and many others, began to become clear.”

Adam Bartz, the executive director of the Washington Senate Democratic Campaign, said he has heard that people in the party are “scared to come out for fear of their future… and that’s really concerning to me.”

Some chalk Stober’s alleged behavior up to a “culture” in the Democratic Party that includes rough language, rude jokes, heavy drinking, and behavior that would be out of bounds in a corporate office. I asked Stober about that—and, specifically, how much drinking played a role in King County Democratic Party business. “Deals are made over drinks,” Stober said. “Meetings occur in bars. It’s not the 8 to 5 business world where you meet at Starbucks all the time. It’s a different culture, and people need to realize that.”

But Brent Williams-Ruth, the former state committeeman for the 30th District Democrats, said he was shocked by his first interaction with Stober, at a bar in Walla Walla during an event for the state Democratic Party last year. (The event was the same one at which a Party official allegedly raped a college-age volunteer, as reported in the Spokane Spokesman-Review last year.)

“I came down to the bar, and he was very animated, [with a] red, flushed face, and he was using all this profane, vulgar language about how a lot of the people on his email list were Republicans and they could suck his cock,” Williams-Ruth says. “We’re in the heart of a red town, in a public place, where any of these bartenders or servers could be pulling out their phones and putting this on Youtube.” Williams-Ruth says he finished his drink and went back to his room to order Pizza Hut—“I have the receipts, literally,” he says—and “after that incident, I felt like this was not someone I wanted to work with. It showed me how completely inappropriate and unprepared he was for a leadership position, because that’s just not language you use in a professional setting.”

Asked to respond to Williams-Ruth’s statement, Stober said, “I was in the hotel bar for a short period of time but was with dozens of people whom did not seem to hear the statements that Brent did. That is a pretty far stretch from reality.” He noted that he made a joint appearance with King County Republican Party Chair Lori Sotelo to speak in favor of legislation reforming the state’s public disclosure law, which I covered; would Sotelo have done that, he asked rhetorically, “if I talked that way about Republicans?” He would trust Sotelo “to be a character witness before I trusted someone attempting to verify claims with Pizza Hut receipts,” Stober added.

Williams-Ruth now says “I no longer have any love for the party, “adding that his interactions with Stober are one reason he decided to leave his position. “I have love for the people and the candidates and the mission, but this party bullshit has driven me away.”

Several people I spoke to who recounted incidents involving Stober told me they are personally afraid of speaking out about him, because he wields considerable power in the party and because he has already threatened, in his letter, to sue the vice chairs for libel and defamation. Adam Bartz, the executive director of the Washington Senate Democratic Campaign, said he has heard that people in the party are “scared to come out for fear of their future… and that’s really concerning to me.” Earlier this month, Bartz sent an email to Democratic Senators informing him that he had advised his staff to have no contact with Stober and advising them to do the same.

“When you look back to your 20s, you think of people [in power] as so old,” Williams-Ruth says. “They think he has the ability to ruin their life forever.”

Somewhat lost in the furor about the sexual harassment allegations is another, less salacious but, the vice chairs say, equally important charge: Misuse of King County party funds, specifically on “hotel rooms … and food when unnecessary,” as the vice chairs’ memo puts it. In their memo, the vice chairs say they determined that charge to be “founded,” along with the allegation that “staff is continuously scared of not being paid because there is not enough money in the bank.”

A look at the county party’s official filings with the state Public Disclosure Commission confirms that spending increased significantly during Stober’s year as chair—from $73,732 in 2016 to $135,378 last year—but that contributions increased as well, from $78,719 to $163,033. However, the group had just over $20,000 in the bank at the end of February—far less than they spent in any single month in 2017 after Koss Vallejo was hired in August, according to PDC reports. And that money doesn’t include any funds that were spent after January 31. “We’re broke right now,” King County Democrats treasurer Nancy Podcshwit says bluntly. “The rent is due in March, I have some legal bills I have to pay, and unless we get some money in, we’re in trouble.”

Podschwit says she was stunned by some of the expenditures that would show up on the organization’s bank statements: $7,127 on equipment and furniture to set up a new office last summer; Comcast bills that ran to $700 a month or more; and thousands of dollars in miscellaneous costs for Stober to travel around the state, including a mileage reimbursement—all apparently unusual practices for the chair of a county Democratic Party organization, particularly the mileage reimbursement, which Podschwit says was unprecedented for a King County party chair.

Koss Vallejo says Stober would frequently assure her pressure her to make major purchases, including an iPhone, using party money, assuring her that the spending was allowed under the budget approved by the party organization. “He seems to think that hypothetical budgets translate into actual dollars, which they don’t,” Koss Vallejo says. “You can budget for anything you want—you can budget for a unicorn, a bouncy castle, and a pony, and even if the board approves it, that doesn’t make the dollars manifest in your bank account.”

Stober acknowledges that he “encouraged Natalia to look into a business line for herself rather than giving out her personal number,” but denies that the organization has ever been in financial straits. “These past two months have been slow months for sure, as they are with most political organizations, but we just got a substantial check yesterday, so everything is continuing just fine,” Stober said Monday night. “I am sitting in the Party office with the rent paid, lights on, heat blasting and nothing is suffering here.”

“You can budget for anything you want—you can budget for a unicorn, a bouncy castle, and a pony, and even if the board approves it, that doesn’t make the dollars manifest in your bank account.”—Former King County Democratic Party executive director Natalia Koss Vallejo

Asked about some of his specific expenditures, Stober told me he needed to spend money to raise money, and said that he has raised “more money than the organization has raised in two decades. If I’m going to go ask somebody for $5,000, I’m going cover their lunch at the meeting. That’s how political fundraising has worked for decades.” Expense reports at the PDC include thousands of dollars that were either spent by the party or reimbursed to Stober for everything from candidate interviews and “entertainment” at Collins Pub in downtown Seattle ($134 over two visits), to unspecified “food and entertainment” and “meeting” expenses incurred by Stober (more than $1,700 spread over several expense reports that do not include a precise breakdown of expenditures), to mileage and parking costs totaling nearly $1,900.

The expense reports also include more than $1,700 in unspecified “expenses under $50,” as well as thousands of dollars spent on travel and retreats for Stober and other campaign volunteers, including an $1,826 Airbnb bill last December for a two-day January executive retreat on Vashon Island. Stober posted about the island retreat on Facebook: “The macaroni and cheese and ribs are cooking, the rosé is poured, the hot tub is fired up and the King County Democrats leadership retreat has begun.” Three weeks after that, Stober listed some stops on his travel schedule:

Stinson, the 36th District policy director, says, “I will tell you: It is a hard thing to raise enough money to continuously pay someone. I don’t even take money when I’m driving down to Olympia [on party business or for political advocacy.] So to see that there’s a retreat on a house on an island and that they didn’t get it donated … then you wonder how are you paying a staff member.”

Stober says his cross-state travel involved important party-building activities in parts of the state, like Eastern Washington, where the Democratic Party has few resources. “When I ran for county party chair, one of the things I said is that in King County, we’re lucky because we’re rich in resources. We’re the bluest county in the state, and part of my goal as chair will be to export some of those resources to places that are red.” However, several party members mentioned the widespread rumor that Stober is planning to challenge current Washington State Demorcratic Party chair Tina Podlodowski, and speculated that that ambitious goal is part of the reason for his frequent travel around the state. “Why is the King County Democratic chair going and meeting with people in Chelan and Walla Walla and Spokane? It’s because he was shoring up his votes from people who would vote for him for chair next year,” Williams-Ruth says.

When I asked about this, Stober acknowledged that running for state party chair is “something I’ve considered, and that a lot of folks have asked me to do,” but added, “Seeing the nasty politics of this situation definitely makes me lean in a ‘no’ direction.”

Koss Vallejo says that before he fired her, Stober told her that the group was about to be hit with a $35,000 penalty in a case stemming from a complaint about late filing that was initiated by conservative activist Glen Morgan. Attorney General’s Office spokeswoman Brionna says the case “has not resolved,” and Stober said he couldn’t comment on ongoing litigation except to say that Koss Vallejo’s statement was “not true.”

Regardless of the ultimate size of the penalty, Podscwhit says that “because of [Stober’s] spending, we’re in a pretty precarious financial situation right now. “He certainly wasn’t authorized by the King County Democrats to spend that kind of money.” Under the King County Democrats’ bylaws, Stober didn’t have to ask for Podschwit’s approval to spend money on things like brand-new office equipment and an office space in Auburn that continues to cost the group $1,800 a month, but she says that if he had asked, “I would have told him we didn’t have the money to do it,” or to hire Koss Vallejo in the first place. “We don’t now, and we didn’t then.”

In addition to the complaint against the King County Democrats, Morgan has filed several campaign-finance complaints against Stober himself, including one alleging that Stober did campaign work while on the clock at his day job as spokesman for King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson and others claiming he failed to file timely reports during his three unsuccessful bids for Kent City Council.

In 2015, while Stober was seeking a council seat for the third time, the state Public Disclosure Commission ordered him to pay a fine of $4,000 in two of the cases instigated by Morgan, with $2,000 of that amount suspended as long as he did not commit additional campaign-finance violations. Last June, the Attorney General’s office filed a petition in King County Superior Court charging that Stober had failed to provide records in response to a complaint involving his 2015 campaign and asking the court to compel Stober to provide the documents.

Stober has filed his own complaints against other candidates, including Kent City council member Brenda Fincher (for late reports) and Kent School Board candidate Trisha Sanders (Stober, filing on behalf of one of Sanders’ opponents, claimed that Sanders had falsified her voter registration). Stober was not running against either candidate. In 2013, as an executive assistance for the chairman of the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs, Ed Prince, Stober was quoted on KING 5 claiming that a previous director, Rosalund Jenkins, had spent commission funds improperly on what he called “absolutely crazy expenses” like food, greeting cards, and wine. (A subsequent audit found evidence of improper, but not illegal, expenditures.) And in 2014, Stober received a $125,000 settlement from the state over allegations that the director of the Washington State Office of Minority and Women’s Business Enterprises, to whom he sometimes reported, had sexually harassed him by, among other things, making “vulgar” comments, according to a report on KING 5.

Stober bristles at the notion that controversies follow him around; rather, he suggests, “I think you get a lot of attention and get noticed when you speak what you believe is your truth and you’re unapologetic about it. I don’t always color within the lines and I speak truth to power, and when I see an injustice I speak up about it.”

The King County Democrats will hold their regularly scheduled monthly meeting from 7 to 9:00 tonight at the Teamsters hall in Tukwila. As of Monday, Stober did not plan to resign. If he does not do so voluntarily, some board members have indicated that they will call for a vote to instigate a process to remove him, which requires approval from two-thirds of the board and a vote by the party’s precinct committee officers in two weeks. Stober says he thinks that outcome is unlikely, and says that “a large contingent of my board think this was not handled properly” and will call for a new investigation into the allegations. “If I step down, there will be no fair investigation to clear my name,” Stober says. “We used to live in a country where a crime could be committed and [people could] point at a person of color and they would be sentenced without any crime being committed. If we’re going to value justice as a party, part of that is due process.”

I pointed out to Stober that many of the men who have been accused of sexual harassment and assault as part of the MeToo movement have also called for “due process,” and asked him if he felt MeToo had gone too far. He paused, then said, “The hell that I’m going through compares not even in the slightest to the trauma that so many women go through every day.” Then he returned to due process. “So many people posted pictures of Martin Luther King [on social media] on Martin Luther King Day, but they no longer believe in due process. Both inside and outside the MeToo movement, there has to be some level of justice.”

This story took many hours of reporting over the last two weeks. If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, including long-form stories based on dozens of hours of interviews, like this one, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site or making a one-time contribution! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as reporting-related and office expenses. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

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